


Ship To Wreck

by Lothiriel84



Series: How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful [1]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Backstory, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 18:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10471248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothiriel84/pseuds/Lothiriel84
Summary: I can't help but pull the earth around me, to make my bed.





	

He was nine when he learnt he was not allowed to like boys the way Caitlyn did.

“Girls like boys, Martin,” his mother pleaded, and he was suddenly reminded of when he was six, and wanting to be an airplane. “And boys like girls. That’s how it is.”

“But what if I do?”

Mum shook her head, shot him the kind of worried, anxious look that made his insides knot. “You’re allowed to have friends, darling. Of course you are.”

“But I can’t kiss them on the cheek the way Caitlyn does with Tom?”

“That’s right, sweetheart.”

His mother went back to doing the dishes, and he finished his tea in silence. At least he was still allowed to play with his favourite model plane; he would be heartbroken if his parents ever decided to forbid him from doing so.

(Then one day Simon borrowed it without asking, and returned it with a broken wing. Mum insisted it wasn’t Simon’s fault, but still refused to buy him a new one.)

 

Nathan was a good ten inches taller than him, and far much stronger. He called Martin a sissy, threw his briefcase on the Science Block and dared him to go and fetch it.

He could have told Simon, but he knew his brother wouldn’t pass on the chance to look good in the eyes of their parents, play the part of the proper big brother stepping in to the rescue of his pathetic younger sibling. In the end Martin only sprained his ankle, and got a lecture on how he wasn’t supposed to play dangerous games in the schoolyard.

His English literature book was ruined, but he couldn’t ask his father to buy a new one, so he simply nicked Simon’s old one whenever he needed it for an assignment.

It wasn’t as if his brother would even notice anyway.

 

One day when he was alone at home he put on some of Caitlyn’s clothes and frowned at his image on the mirror. Maybe if he could convince his parents that he was secretly a girl, they would allow him to date boys the way Caitlyn did.

But the skirt looked all wrong on him, the fabric of the brightly coloured top hanging loosely over his flat chest. He didn’t want to be a girl, not in the tiniest little bit.

He wanted to be a boy, and a pilot, and to be able to hold David’s hand without all of their classmates sneering at them, and calling them names.

(It was just a week later that David announced he and Katie had got together. Martin walked in on them during lunchtime, they were standing behind a tree and had their mouths together. He pretended he hadn’t seen them; he was only a little sick in the first floor bathroom, emptied his lunch box in the bin as he walked home so that he could pretend he’d actually eaten it.)

 

Joyce was the neighbours’ daughter; she was one year older than him, and he helped her with maths sometimes. (He was very good at maths, at least in theory, but his marks were average at best because he always worked himself up to a panic, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember how he was supposed to do it.)

They were friends, sort of, up until he accidentally revealed that he had never been with anyone, and Joyce asked if he wanted her to show him. He agreed, partly because it seemed rude to turn her down, but mostly so that he didn’t have to lie anymore when all other boys started comparing their respective experiences.

It was over before it started, really, and nowhere near as thrilling an experience as everybody else seemed to describe it. Joyce assured him it was all right, told him they could still be friends; but he was secretly relieved when her family moved out of Wokingham a couple of months later.

 

Flight schools turned him down one after the other, and in the end he had no choice but to join the Air Cadets. James was the only friend he made during that period of his life; they often sneaked together to a quiet corner, sharing the odd cigarette Jamie had nicked from one of the older members of the squadron.

(He hated the smell of smoke, hated the feel of it burning down his throat. But then Jamie’s fingers would brush against his own, and they would clutch at one another in the dark, until they were trembling with fear, and desire, and just how right it felt in spite of what everyone else seemed to believe.)

Jamie was a natural, he flew planes like he was born to do it.

Maybe, just maybe, one day Martin would do too.


End file.
